Ike and McCarthy

by David A. Nichols

  Armed with that revelation, Karl Mundt called the subcommittee into executive session on May 6 to question Fred Seaton. Given Seaton’s relationship with the White House, that was a moment of peril for the administration. At 10:10 a.m. in room 248 of the Senate Office Building, Ike’s henchman in the Pentagon was sworn to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  Those who worked closely with Seaton knew better than to underestimate him. On that occasion, he exhibited a highly selective memory. His answers were punctuated with phrases such as “not so far as I remember” or “no, not to the best of my memory.” He provided the information in the narrowest possible framework, without elaboration.

  Roy Cohn seized the chance to find out how the administration had arranged to disclose its knowledge of his activities on behalf of Private Schine. “Were you present at any such discussion, at any time when there was any mention of that made?” Cohn asked. Seaton: “No, I certainly don’t recall it, Roy.” Asked when he had first learned about the Adams report, Seaton was vague: “Well, I can’t exactly pinpoint it.” “Whose idea was it to keep this report?” Cohn inquired. Seaton said that “to the best of my knowledge, it was Mr. [John] Adams.” Cohn pressed the central question: “Whose idea was it to issue the report?” Again, Seaton—the man who, on March 11, had actually engineered its release—just could not recall. He remembered that “Senator Potter subsequently wrote a letter to the secretary, the contents of which I don’t remember at the moment, but it had to do with that general subject, and a report was then sent to Senator Potter.”

  Cohn pressed Seaton about McCarthy’s phone call the day the Schine report was released. To whom had Seaton transmitted the senator’s request to include his documents? Seaton stonewalled: “Well, I don’t remember specifically.” Cohn tried again to pin Seaton down. “Did you ever hear any discussion in the Defense Department or particularly with Mr. Stevens or Mr. Adams, or Mr. Hensel, or any of them, concerning the fact that the issuance of this report would result in discrediting Senator McCarthy?” Seaton disingenuously responded, “No, I can’t say that I did, Roy.”

  Thoroughly frustrated, Cohn snapped, “Why were they getting out this report, Fred?” “My understanding,” Seaton coolly responded, “is that [it] was gotten out in order to satisfy the request from members of Congress who had demanded the report.” When Cohn asked how many senatorial requests they had received, Seaton stated, “Well, to the best of my memory, it was someplace between fifteen and ten.” Cohn pushed harder: “How many of those requests had been made on the solicitation of Mr. Stevens, Mr. Adams or anyone from the Army?” Seaton quietly responded, “I wouldn’t know any that were, but I know nothing about that, Roy.” Fortunately, Cohn’s question had left Seaton himself out of the equation.

  Seaton’s testimony confirmed that a meeting had taken place on February 24 in Secretary Stevens’s office. However, he made it sound so inconsequential that it was not worth remembering. He recalled only “a very short discussion”—“five minutes”—among Stevens, Kyes, Hensel, and himself about the memorandum of understanding Stevens had signed at his luncheon. “There was no material discussion” about the negative press reports, and “no decision was reached, or anything else.” Seaton smoothly polished off his antiseptic account of that tumultuous day in the Pentagon: “The three of us walked down the hall, Kyes went into his office, Hensel into his, and I went into mine.”26

  Cohn had not outmanuevered Eisenhower’s field commander in the Pentagon’s anti-McCarthy operation. The next day, when Stevens was forced to recant his previous testimony, McCarthy accused him of perjury, but no one so accused Fred Seaton.27

  AN ANGRY PRESIDENT

  Eisenhower and Hagerty knew that failure to hold a news conference when the president was in town would generate speculation about Indochina and the Army-McCarthy hearings. So they scheduled a session for 9:00 a.m. on April 29. After making noncommittal responses to questions about Indochina, the president showed irritation at two McCarthy-related questions. He “wore a look of incredulity” when informed that a congressman had quoted RNC chairman Leonard Hall to the effect that he had scheduled Senator McCarthy for three solid months of campaigning for Republican candidates. “Leonard Hall?” Ike snapped. The reporter responded, “Yes, sir.” Eisenhower retorted, “Leonard Hall hasn’t said that to me.” The room rocked with laughter.28

  Another question hit even closer to the president’s anti-McCarthy nerve. Arthur Sylvester of the Newark News noted Stevens’s testimony about the “pressure by Mr. McCarthy in behalf of Private Schine” and asked if Secretary Wilson had ever taken the matter up with the president. That question reaped the five-star general’s scorn: “You mean talking about this private?” Sylvester responded, “Yes, and pressure being put on him.” At that, Eisenhower spat out, “I never heard of him. I never heard of him.” A New York Times reporter wrote that the president “appeared indignant and angry and his audience broke into laughter.” But, the journalist added, “The President did not join in the merriment.” No wonder the reporters laughed. It was unbelievable, a week into the Army-McCarthy hearings, to suggest that the president of the United States had not heard of G. David Schine.

  Finally, another correspondent asked, “Mr. President, as a former commanding general of the United States Army, what do you think of all the excitement at the Capitol over the privileges granted this private?” The president was described as “flushed and glaring,” and “his jaw was set.” Following a silence, a reporter wrote, “The President drew up his shoulders and clenched his hands together, and when he answered, it was in a deeply husky voice”: “I trust that you ladies and gentlemen will excuse me for declining to talk at all about something that—the whole business—that I don’t think is something to talk about very much. I just hope it is all concluded very quickly. That’s all.” With that, Eisenhower strode rapidly out of the room. Merriman Smith barely had time to voice his usual benediction: “Thank you, Mr. President.”29

  The president’s comment that he hoped the hearings would be “concluded very quickly” inevitably generated rumors. The next day, when asked if anyone at the White House had tried to call a halt to the Army-McCarthy hearings, Hagerty told reporters, “There is nothing to it.”30

  A DEAL TO END THE HEARINGS?

  Republican senators on the McCarthy subcommittee made numerous attempts to shut down the Army-McCarthy hearings. Eisenhower’s concluding comment at his April 29 news conference appeared to support the conclusion that the president wanted them terminated. If key participants wanted them ended, why did they continue?

  In fact, every time Eisenhower had an opportunity to exercise his influence to truncate the hearings, he refused. Television was not kind to McCarthy. As John Adams recalled, McCarthy “looked grotesque close-up, his face covered with cream-colored pancake makeup to disguise his heavy beard for the television cameras. Though he was fleshy with whiskey weight, and his shirt would be soaked through by noon, his sharp nose made him look like a hawk as he descended on Stevens. His voice was usually a tight whine, and he occasionally emitted a strange, high giggle.” Stevens, on the other hand, Adams noted, was “freshly shaven; his gray hair was neatly combed,” and his gray double-breasted suit “was beautifully cut and neatly pressed.” He looked, Adams suggested, “like the men who pass the collection plates in at prosperous Presbyterian churches, which he did when he was home in Plainfield, New Jersey.”31

  Eisenhower had made a cold-blooded decision: the hearings were proving so destructive to McCarthy’s reputation that he wanted them to continue until, politically, the senator was ground into dust—even if it damaged the Republican Party in an election year. Herbert Brownell, who knew Ike’s mind on the issue, wrote that, when Republican leaders sought to end the televised hearings, “we in the administration recognized the damage that live coverage of the hearings was causing McCarthy and recommended their continuation.”32

  That intent remained covert. Ike post
ured otherwise with people who did not know his secret plan. Charles Potter claimed that when he visited the White House, the president had asked, “When is it going to end, Charlie?” On May 6, Ike wrote Harry Bullis, a General Mills executive, that he hoped the hearings would be “brought speedily and effectively to an end.”33

  Everett Dirksen spearheaded the effort to end the hearings. His formula for making peace focused on firing both Roy Cohn and John Adams, as he had proposed all along. That would reinforce McCarthy’s contention that the fundamental conflict was Adams-Cohn, not Army-McCarthy. Dirksen made his first big effort the night of Monday, May 3: he sought to limit testimony primarily to Stevens and McCarthy and take the remaining sessions behind closed doors. He presented his scheme to the other three Republican senators on the subcommittee and all agreed, including McCarthy.34

  Welch initially agreed to discuss the proposal. However, the next day, after consulting with Jenkins, he concluded, “We were unable to invent a magic formula for shortening the hearings” and declared, “We must plough the long furrow.” Welch repeated more than once, “I want all the facts developed.” Dirksen called Welch’s clarification “a change of heart,” and McCarthy smartly asserted that the attorney had “welched.” On May 5, Welch repeated that he “would not be satisfied with a formula whereby Senator McCarthy would follow Mr. Stevens and be subjected to an examination and cross-examination and that the hearing would then be ended.”35

  That Eisenhower had vetoed an early end to the hearings became apparent in his May 5 news conference, after Stevens’s and Welch’s rejection of the Dirksen proposal. His first question that day addressed the issue: “Mr. President, last week you expressed the hope that there would be an early end to the Army-McCarthy hearings. Yesterday the Army counsel objected to a Republican proposal to cut them short. . . . Do you still favor a quick end to those hearings?”

  Eisenhower joked about his stormy exit from the April 29 news conference, noting “that my appearance upon answering seemed to be more important than what I had to say, so I will try to be very careful.” Once the laughter subsided, he resumed his carefully rehearsed statement: “I did say that I hoped that these hearings would be quickly concluded; but by the word ‘concluded,’ I meant, of course, with effective answers to whatever were considered by the committee to be the main issues involved, and from the principals concerned.” That comment sounded remarkably like Welch’s statement that he wanted “all the facts developed.” The president closed the discussion: “I am going to say just one more thing about it, and then I wouldn’t be surprised that I would bar questions of this nature”—pausing for more laughter—“for a few weeks at least.”

  Suddenly, Edward J. Milne of the Providence Journal leaped to his feet and, mimicking McCarthy, shouted, “Mr. President, point of order!” That “one more thing” was a question Jim Hagerty had undoubtedly planted. When the laughter waned, Milne asked “whether or not Secretary Stevens, who is now in his tenth day on the stand, has your full backing in his course of conduct?” All in the room knew that Stevens’s “course of conduct” the previous day had been to reject Dirksen’s plan to curtail the hearings. Eisenhower delivered a crisp, unequivocal response: “Secretary Stevens was selected for his present job with great care, upon the recommendation of people that have known him for a long time. His record was carefully examined. I know of nothing that would cause me to lose confidence in Secretary Stevens’ administration of the Army, and on that basis I’d back him up to the limit.”36

  But the movement to end the hearings was still active. Ike sought a contingency plan in case that happened. The moment he emerged from the May 5 news conference, he phoned Herbert Brownell to ask his “shot-gun opinion”: if the hearings produced nothing “that disciplines this man [McCarthy] or limits his power in any way”—to Ike, the reason for the hearings—“could the President get away with ordering no member of [the] Executive Branch to go before [the] Committee?” In other words, what would his options be if the McCarthy forces succeeded in ending the hearings and the senator returned to his investigations? Brownell apparently affirmed the president’s authority to invoke executive privilege.37

  The news on May 7 transformed the international and political landscape. On that day, Eisenhower learned that Dien Bien Phu had fallen; the French had suffered a humiliating defeat. Though he had not yet decided against military intervention, Eisenhower had “grave doubts” about the efficacy of air strikes and the introduction of additional ground troops. Above all, he did not intend to violate the American “tradition of anticolonialism” by supporting France’s efforts to maintain portions of its empire. Years later, writing his memoirs, Eisenhower was still irritated that, on the day of the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the lead story in a major newspaper had focused on “Senator McCarthy’s demand for a test of the Executive’s right to bar secret data to congressional investigators.”38

  MORE VETOES

  Roy Cohn recalled that Dirksen made a second effort the following week—around May 8—to close down the hearings “at once.” Any additional witnesses would testify behind closed doors, and all testimony would be released to the public. Cohn narrated an elaborate anecdote “with mystery-story overtones, involving a young man in a hotel room”—Cohn—“awaiting a telephone call” informing him that the hearings were history. Cohn had agreed to a plan whereby he and John Adams would resign simultaneously and announce that they were “taking the step at a personal sacrifice” to “save the taxpayers’ money and serve the nation.” Cohn got the approval of McCarthy who allegedly said, “Besides, nobody is going to win this thing.” Cohn endured “a lonely, day-long wait” at the Mayflower Hotel. Then, about dark, the phone rang and Cohn was informed that the army had rejected the proposal.

  According to Cohn, Dirksen was furious. The senator had rushed to the White House and demanded that “the Administration insist on the Army’s agreeing to the plan,” but the White House “refused to bring any pressure on the military. If that was how the Army wanted it, Dirksen was told, that’s the way it had to be.” Dwight Eisenhower had exercised his second pocket veto.39

  Dirksen would make one final, dramatic attempt. Jim Hagerty knew something was afoot on May 10, when Walter Winchell took him to lunch “as an emissary of [the] McCarthy group.” Winchell wanted Hagerty to lobby the president, calling it “a good idea to call off [the] Army-McCarthy hearings and to recommend that they be taken off television.” Knowing what Ike wanted, Hagerty told Winchell he “could not give such a word” and used the excuse that “we would not interfere with Senate proceedings.”40

  Everett Dirksen presented his new plan the morning of Tuesday, May 11. The plan had four components: (1) that Stevens conclude his testimony and McCarthy then testify, with public hearings recessed upon the conclusion of his testimony; (2) that other witnesses be examined only in executive session, with the testimony released immediately to the public; (3) that Ray Jenkins interview prospective witnesses and report on whether anyone else should testify in public sessions; and finally that (4) Senator McCarthy—in Roy Cohn’s words—“at the conclusion of his testimony, be authorized to resume the regular hearings on matters not related to the present controversy.”41

  On the morning of May 11, Jim Hagerty noted that the White House was under “great pressure to try to take hearings into executive session after McCarthy’s testimony.” The congressional aides in the White House believed “it would be a good idea.” Hagerty thought “it would be terrible,” and the president “agrees with me.” Eisenhower had called Charles Wilson, he noted, “and told him not to put any pressure at all on Stevens along these lines but to tell Stevens to ‘do what you think is right.’ ” By that point, Wilson and Stevens knew what that instruction from the White House boss really meant.42

  McCarthy announced his acceptance of the plan, and the hearing was plunged into debate over the proposal. Stevens initially stated that “at the present time we do not subscribe to the idea of putting witnesse
s into executive session.” Close to noon, Mundt made a passionate plea to the principals to “search their souls and consciences” during the noon hour. He boxed himself in by stating to “all parties” that he would, in the name of equity, vote “no” if any one of those directly involved, including the army, objected.43

  Strangely, after lunch, Joe Welch returned without Robert Stevens. The secretary, supposedly suffering from a virus infection, had gone home. However genuine his illness, his absence was convenient, protecting him from another stressful encounter and freeing him to consult the Pentagon and the White House. When pressed about whether Stevens was still opposed to the Dirksen resolution, Welch stalled, saying he would try to reach the secretary by phone. Mundt offered Welch the use of a private phone, but Welch preferred a pay phone, probably to avoid anyone listening in on the conversation and provide an opportunity to consult others besides Stevens.

  When Welch returned, he stated, “Mr. Chairman, due to the wonderful invention of television, the Secretary was able to follow what had happened.” Stevens was therefore “ready to talk.” “Wonderful!” exclaimed Mundt. “And what was Mr. Stevens ready to say?” Welch said, in effect, that Stevens had said “No.” When the perplexed Mundt sought clarification, Welch declined to answer for Stevens, so he left to make another pay phone call.

  When Welch returned, he quoted Stevens: “I continue in my view that the proposed resolution would not result in fairness.” The vote was three nos by the Democrats, three yeses by the Republicans except for Mundt, who kept his commitment: “The chair votes no. The motion fails.” Hagerty noted later in the day that the army’s negative response “came [as] a great surprise to everyone on the Hill and at the White House—not to Sherman Adams and myself.” That meant it was no shock to the president.44